AMD talked a bit about benefits for 'Bulldozer' when paired with Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system. At the moment there is a Windows 8 Developer Preview available from Microsoft Dev Center. In this short article PCSTATS will test this claim by comparing identical computer systems running an AMD FX-8150 'Bulldozer' processor, under both operating systems.

PCSTATS decided to compare the AMD FX-8150 processor against itself in Windows 8 and Windows environments and see what kind of performance gains AMD was talking about. Going into this test we (frankly) did not expect Windows 8 to come out ahead, mainly because of the sheer frustration of working in Windows 8 Developer.... but on closer examination of the benchmark results the AMD FX-8150 CPU does, on average, see a benefit from this upcoming OS.

It's exciting to test out a brand new processor in an unreleased operating system such as Microsoft Windows 8 Developer, so before diving into 'Bulldozer's architecture, fantastic overclockability or it's mixed bag of results compared to competing CPUs, we wanted to jump ahead and post this quick little Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 face off. See the full AMD FX-8150 processor review for how this 3.6GHz 8-core processor stacks up against competing Intel and AMD flagship chips.

Since the hardware was identical between the two tests so we're not going to bother with a boring test system spec chart. Explanations after the benchmark chart.

Windows 8 (Developer Preview) Windows 7 AMD FX-8150 AMD FX-8150 - SiSoft Sandra 2011 - Processor Processor Arithmetic Dhrystone ALU: (GIPS) 87.64 88.16 Processor Arithmetic Whetstone iSSE3: (Gflops) 62.82 62.87 Processor Multi-Media Int x8 iSSE3: (Mpixels/s) 210.79 221.27 Processor Multi-Media Float x4 iSSE2: (Mpixels/s) 136.66 100.37 Processor Multi-Media Float x2 iSSE2: (Mpixels/s) 76.36 56.2 - SiSoft Sandra 2011 - Memory Multicore Efficiency Bandwidth: (GB/s) 10.45 9.35 Multicore Efficiency Latency: (ns) 173.6 206.7 Memory Bandwidth Int iSSE2: (GB/s) 16 15.56 Memory Bandwidth Float iSSE2: (GB/s) 16 15.56 Memory Latency (Random): (ns) 82.5 82.3 Memory Latency (Linear): (ns) 10.7 10.9 - SYSMark 2007 Preview 1.06 Overall: .... failed 215 E-Learning: .... failed 169 Videocreation: .... failed 341 Productivity: .... failed 185 3D: .... failed 202 - Futuremark PCMark Vantage 1.0.0.0 Overall: .... failed 13240 Memory: 9326 8917 TV and Movies: .... failed 6593 Gaming: 8640 8089 Music: 14273 13165 Communications: .... failed 13550 Productivity: .... failed 13344 HDD: 29476 28263 - Bibble 5.0 Time to Complete 50 Photo's: (sec) 9.39 9.36 Batch RAW-to-JPEG Conversion: (sec/Image) 0.188 0.187 - ScienceMark 2.3 Primordia: (sec) 2-core 290.31845 292.3531 Mol Dyn: (sec) 2-core 74.86448 69.18975 - Cinebench R10 1 CPU (split between cores) 2867 2895 x CPU (full load all cores) 14785 14431 - Super Pi Mod 1.5 XS 1 Million Digits: (sec) 22.164 21.981 16 Million Digits: (sec) 566.776 576.374 - wPrime 2.0 32 Million Digits (1 thread): (sec) 49.077 53.567 32 Million Digits (2 thread): (sec) 24.897 26.987 32 Million Digits (3 thread): (sec) 19.858 18.326 32 Million Digits (4 thread): (sec) 14.726 15.538 32 Million Digits (5 thread): (sec) 13.058 13.153 32 Million Digits (6 thread): (sec) 10.951 11.979 32 Million Digits (7 thread): (sec) 9.766 10.72 32 Million Digits (8 thread): (sec) 8.876 9.895 - Pov-Ray 3.7 BETA 30 Render Time (sec) 64.27 63.77 Render Average (Pixels Per Sec) 4078.67 4110.64 - Futuremark 3DMark06 1.1.0 Overall: 15075 15326 CPU: 5401 5807 - Futuremark 3DMark08 Vantage 1.0.1 Performance Overall: (P) 7886 7900 CPU Score: 18936 18936 - Crysis v1.2.1 No AA 800x600 LQ Physics Very High (FPS) would not run would not run 1024x768 LQ Physics Very High (FPS) would not run would not run - Sierra FEAR 1.08 No AA 800x600 LQ 605 573 1024x768 LQ 595 565 Number of times out performed other OS: 24 21

For the most part Windows 8 saw a 1%-5% improvement with the AMD FX-8150 processor, though benchmarks like Sandra's multi-media float x4 test net a healthy 26% improvement in Windows 8.

Unfortunately, Sysmark refused to run in Windows 8 and PCMark Vantage gave up the ghost for half of its sub-tests. Where PCMark Vantage did work correctly, the results saw an average 4% - 6% improvement in Windows 8 vs. Windows 7. Computational benchmarks like Bibble 5.0, Sciencemark and SuperPi were too close to call.

WPrime shaved a whole second off its score compared to the results achieved by the AMD FX-8150 in Windows 7. Cinebench was inconclusive. With 'One CPU' core loaded the Windows 7/FX-8150 platform came out ahead. With 'All CPU Cores' loaded the Windows 8/FX-8150 saw a 2% lead. 3DMark 06 and 3DMark Vantage clearly favoured the Windows 7 environment while FEAR benefited 5% from Windows 8. The Crysis benchmark refused to een run on the FX-8150 chip, regardless of the operating system.